Monday, December 15, 2014

Out of step or marching to a different drummer?

The 12 days of Christmas

Which of
these metaphors – out of step or marching to a different drummer – best
describes the Church?

Personally,
I want the Church to march to a different drummer. The drumbeat that we hopefully
seek to hear is the drumbeat of God's Spirit calling us to embody a radically
Christian ethic. In particular, the Church follows in Jesus' footsteps by
incarnating an ethic of love and care for creation, i.e., practicing a radical
hospitality that welcomes all equally and simpler living.

Marching
to a different drummer does not connote Christian superiority or exclusivity.
Instead, the metaphor connotes Christian uniqueness, rooted in the gospel of
Jesus, yet affirming of others who march to their own drummers, following other
paths to God, perhaps sometimes intersecting or even sharing the Jesus path.

Marching
to a different drummer also does not connote a militant understanding of the
gospel. I chose the metaphor in spite of that unfortunate association because
the metaphor resonates with my lengthy military service and because of our
cultural familiarity with it.

However,
I'm afraid that too often we equate the metaphor of being out of step with that
of marching to a different drummer. On the one hand, I want the Church to be
out of step with our social context because we hear a different drummer (i.e.,
God's Spirit) and live in ways that constructively differentiate us from
others. Unfortunately, statistical evidence relevant to that claim is decidedly
mixed. For example, Christians live longer but may have a higher divorce rate.

On the
other hand, I don't want the Church to be out of step with our social context
because we have become fixated on adiaphora,
indifferent things of no ultimate value. Each year, Christmas decorations,
music, and advertising appear earlier than they did the previous year. Each
year, I hear Christian lamentations about rushing the Christmas season,
skipping Advent, and ignoring Thanksgiving. This year, I suddenly realized that
these laments are all about adiaphora.

Giving
thanks is good, but the holiday of Thanksgiving, regardless of its origin, is really
a civic rather than religious feast. I use the word feast intentionally: the average American consumes 4500 calories at
Thanksgiving dinner. Interest in sporting events and shopping dwarfs interest
in thanking God for one's blessings. Surveys show that fewer than half of all
Americans who eat Thanksgiving dinner take time to express their gratitude to
God or one another.

The
Bible is silent about Advent. The Church created Advent as a season of
preparation for its celebration of Jesus' birth. Why have four weeks of Advent?
Why not have eight weeks? Maybe the season of Christmas should begin the Sunday
after All Saints Day and culminate on December 25. We could then celebrate
Epiphany the following Sunday. After all, the early Church took a pagan feast
and baptized it, transforming it into the feast of Jesus' nativity. Those early
Christians recognized that marching to a different drummer does not always
require being out of step with society.

Changing
the ecclesiastical year, especially in a Church like ours, would require
overcoming significant inertia and major administrative hurdles. The Church, by
getting in step with when its neighbors start talking about Christmas, might seem
more relevant to people who have no religious preference or who identify as spiritual
but not religious.

Alternatively,
fiddling with the ecclesiastical year might waste too much time and energy. The
change, for better or worse, would further distinguish Episcopalians from Roman
Catholics and other Western Christians who observe the liturgical year. In any
event, the date of Christmas, as well as the length of Advent and Christmas, is
unimportant.

The
Church too often focuses on adiaphora.
I don't care when Advent starts or how long it lasts. Neither being in nor out
of step on those issues communicates clearly and loudly the rhythm of the
different drummer to whose beat God calls us to march. So I am very happy to
have others, whether ecclesiastical or civic authorities, decide those issues.

Instead,
I want to focus on the important stuff, the stuff that really matters to people
who are trying to follow the drumbeat of God's Spirit. I think Pope Francis
gets this and that is why so many Roman Catholics experience Francis'
leadership as a breath of fresh air. I sharply disagree with Roman Catholic
teachings on many theological and ethical issues; I doubt that Francis will
change these teachings. However, he recognizes that in marching to the drumbeat
of God's Spirit the Roman Catholic Church must embody a Christ-like love. His
predecessor's emphasis on rigidly and incessantly proclaiming more contentious
Roman Catholic teachings frequently put the Roman Church needlessly and unhelpfully
out of step with society. We should try to stay in step with culture unless
getting out of step is an unavoidable consequence of marching to the different drumbeat
of God's Spirit.

The next
decade seems likely to be critical for The Episcopal Church's future. We have journeyed
through challenging times defined by our increasing commitment to social
justice and the full inclusivity of all God's people within the Church. The
move has been costly and Episcopalians increasingly live on society's margin.
Will we slowly fade into oblivion, out of step but not really marching to a
different drummer? Alternatively, will we, hearing the drumbeat of God's Spirit
ever more clearly and loudly, move confidently into a new era in which our congregations
are centers of life abundant life, radiating God's light and love, transforming
their neighbors and the surrounding communities?